What were the worst passwords of 2014?

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What were the worst passwords of 2014?

(Jan. 20, 2015) – How strong are your passwords?

It’s something to consider as the list of last year’s most common passwords comes to light. SplashData, a company that provides password management applications, combed through more than 3.3 million leaked passwords to find the most common.

It is, in effect, a list of the “worst” passwords you could possibly use. This is the fourth year the company has released the report.

“123456” and “password” continue to hold the top two spots, just as they have in past years. The passwords analyzed by the company come from users in North America and Western Europe.

Weak passwords can be easy to guess and make your accounts accessible to hackers, the company says. Experts recommend using passwords of eight characters or more that include letters, numbers and symbols. You should also avoid using the same username and password combination for multiple websites.

SplashData offers the following advice based on its “Worst Passwords” list:

Don’t use a favorite sport as your password – “baseball” and “football” are in top 10, and “hockey,” “soccer” and “golfer” are in the top 100. Don’t use a favorite team either, as “yankees,” “eagles,” “steelers,” “rangers,” and “lakers” are all in the top 100.

Don’t use your birthday or especially just your birth year — 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992 are all in the top 100.

While baby name books are popular for naming children, don’t use them as sources for picking passwords. Common names such as “michael,” “jennifer,” “thomas,” “jordan,” “hunter,” “michelle,” “charlie,” “andrew,” and “daniel” are all in the top 50.